


Layers

by Callisto



Category: Starsky & Hutch
Genre: Episode Related, M/M, Post-Series, Pre-Slash, Season/Series 04
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-07-04
Updated: 2011-07-04
Packaged: 2017-10-21 00:49:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 715
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/219086
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Callisto/pseuds/Callisto
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>Ten days since his hospital release and he still awoke in layers, though not as many. The drugs were fewer, the dreams less hallucinatory, and the pain far less brutal. Which was why, as he gradually came to, he realized there was a heaviness he was not leaving behind.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	Layers

Starsky still tended to wake up in layers of sensation. That was how he had come to think of it. In the hospital, of course, it had been different. There it had been layers upon layers upon layers. In the beginning, powerful drugs had pulled him down, past pain, past dreams, to a layer of...absolutely nothing.

He never forgot the first time he floated up through them all, the first time he swam up through his senses, which were finally awake and feeding him his dreams, his pain, and eventually, his consciousness. Like a diver from the depths, he had broken the surface with a gasp--in truth, barely a whisper--into what had seemed at the time a harshly lit and confusing world.

Ten days since his hospital release and he still awoke in layers, though not as many. The drugs were fewer, the dreams less hallucinatory, and the pain far less brutal. Which was why, as he gradually came to, he realized there was a heaviness he was not leaving behind.

Puzzled, he blinked slowly, opened his eyes, and took a moment to adjust. Reluctant to accept his healing body's limitations, it annoyed Starsky intensely that he fell asleep several times a day - on his sofa, in bed, in front of movies he never saw the end of. Judging by the light waning out of the room, it was late afternoon and he had done it again.

Only this time it was not annoyance or discomfort, but a sudden sense of rightness that he felt. The weight at the lower end of his ribcage, which his diaphragm was gently lifting up and down, was the back of a blond head.

The last thing Starsky remembered was Hutch sprawled on the floor, back against the sofa, surrounded by reports and notes from cases that Dobey had wryly decided to use as therapy for both. Well aware that Hutch would be of no real use to him until Starsky was stronger, Dobey had brought a carton of policework round the previous evening - together with the obligatory meal from Edith - and informed them that if they were going to leave him short-handed like that, the least they could do was get their damn paperwork up-to-date.

It had worked, too. Stretched on the sofa, listening to Hutch muttering, sorting and scribbling, Starsky had felt engaged as a cop again. He had missed their verbal to and fro over cases, and even though he knew his contribution had been limited - he just got too damn tired - he knew from the sudden sparkle in Hutch that he had not been the only one.

As he lay there, watching the blond head slowly rise and fall, Starsky realized two things at once. One, Hutch was awake, and two, Hutch knew he had woken up -- but was still choosing to keep his head where it was.

Interesting, thought Starsky, amused. No self-conscious start, no move away.

"'Ch'doin', Hutch?" Husky and indistinct from sleep, he cleared his throat. "Hmm?"

In the pause which followed Starsky could almost hear the litany of smart remarks his partner was sifting thorugh as Hutch stayed there on the floor, his long legs curled, his eyes focused somewhere past the end of the sofa. _Trampolining, Starsk, what does it look like? Checking to see if there's rain on the way, practising yoga.._. Starsky waited to see which it would be.

“Listening to you,” said Hutch.

Starsky’s hand went to his partner’s hair.

"Yeah? How do I sound?" Starsky's voice was husky again, but not from sleep.

Starsky felt the smile stretch Hutch's face before he heard it.

"Loud, partner. Very, very loud." Hutch made as if to lift his head, but Starsky's hand stayed him.

Hutch's face was the first thing that had made sense when he'd turned panicked eyes away from the light and pain of that hospital room. It was Hutch he remembered when his mind had needed a reason to swim his body back up through the hurt. It was Hutch who had suffered something unspeakable as he flat-lined.

There in the quiet and late afternoon sun of his apartment, Starsky knew with absolute certainty that the weight of Hutch listening to the rise and fall of his breathing, would heal them both.

******


End file.
